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Makoto Niijima
Makoto Niijima (codenamed Queen) is one of the playable characters in Persona 5. She is the student council president of Shujin Academy and one of the members of the Phantom Thieves of Hearts. Appearance Makoto has brown hair in a bob cut with blunt bangs and a French-braid styled headband that matches her hair color. Her eyes are abnormal as they have been depicted as red, although her eye color in her portraits can be interpreted as a reddish-brown. She is of average female height, being taller than Futaba Sakura and Haru Okumura, but slightly shorter than Ann Takamaki. Her winter school uniform appears normal but without the standard blazer. Instead, she wears a black halter vest over a long sleeve white shirt with a turtleneck (which is different from normal turtlenecks for female students). She wears the regulation black and red pleated plaid skirt, black pantyhose and black-brown ankle boots. Personality Despite being the student council president, Makoto is an extremely unpopular student at Shujin Academy; due to her not doing anything to stop Suguru Kamoshida's abuse, she is considered by all the students to be an arrogant, selfish control freak who knew about the abuse but chose to do nothing about it because she only cared about getting a good letter of recommendation. While she does give off the impression of this during the Phantom Thieves' first few encounters with her, these rumors are ultimately revealed to be just that: rumors. In truth, the abuse outraged Makoto, but she didn't feel like she had the power to do anything about it. In fact, Makoto holds no real authority in the school, with her position merely making her a glorified tool for the principal to use however he sees fit. Feeling overshadowed by her highly successful older sister, Makoto has almost no sense of self-worth, and so has made a habit of keeping her nose down and doing what is expected of her. Her submissive nature is noted by Goro Akechi, who condescendingly refers to her as "the good-girl type of pushover." After getting involved with the Phantom Thieves, however, Makoto realizes her frustration at the authority figures around her not living up to the expectations they've set for themselves, and vows from then on to fight for what she believes in, which triggers the awakening of her Persona. After the group defeat Junya Kaneshiro, Makoto decides to stay with the Phantom Thieves, saying that she's done being the "exemplary honour student" and that she's going to try to be more honest with herself. Despite appearing prim and proper on the surface, Makoto is actually more of a tomboy; she's trained in aikido (though she's never seen using it onscreen), enjoys violent action movies, never wears skirts other than her school uniform (which she wears leggings under) and seems to care little about fashion other than the headband she wears in her hair. Makoto is also something of a tsundere; while she's mostly a kind person, she can also be very bossy and is harshly critical of those who don't live up to her expectations, particularly Ryuji Sakamoto, whose case she constantly gets on due to his consistently nonchalant approach to school life, implying that she's a perfectionist. She also has a ton of repressed anger issues over being made to stand on a pedestal by adults who don't follow the same standards themselves, and as such has the worst temper of the group bar none, to the point that even Ryuji, who's quite short-tempered himself, often warns the others not to get her bad side. Makoto can also be a hypocrite at times; when she first joins the team, she criticizes the others for performing their heists without a proper strategy, yet conveniently ignores the fact that only a few days before, she threw herself into Kaneshiro's territory with no plan of any kind out of a desperate attempt to please her sister, which resulted in the entire team getting blackmailed. Nevertheless, Makoto ultimately cares a great deal about her friends, and does not hesitate to praise them when she feels that they've earned it. Despite her immensely serious personality and efforts to be above the more bizarre antics of her friends, Makoto does have her hidden, humorous elements, such as being frightened hearing ghost stories, as well as the dark. Futaba Sakura finds this hilarious upon realizing how stoic Makoto is normally, and repeatedly teases her about her phobia of horror movies throughout the game. Additionally, Makoto is shown to care little for formalities, insisting that the younger members of the group call her by her first name without the -senpai honorific. She is also quite sarcastic at times; when Yusuke Kitagawa talks about his technique about filling himself on ginger before beginning to eat sushi, she states "You don't need to do that this time. Actually, definitely don't do it, okay?" Makoto is often believed to have the personality of a robot. The reason her classmates get this impression from her is that they believe she blindly follows the principal's orders, doesn't show a lot of emotion and is very focused on getting good grades. Even among the Phantom Thieves, she takes on the role of analyzing and memorizing enemy data much like a computer would and even has a few robot-like mannerisms, one example being when the Phantom Thieves find a treasure chest in Mementos, and she tells them to "await Joker's orders." At one point, she is even called a robot by Eiko Takao, much to her embarrassment. Makoto also has a habit of overthinking things, such as when she can't shake the idea that Sojiro Sakura could be abusing Futaba until Ann assures her that he's innocent. She suspects that she gets this habit from her sister. As the sister of a prosecutor, Makoto is always prepared to believe the worst of others, such as her above-mentioned suspicion of Sojiro and when she forces the Phantom Thieves to prove that what they're doing is just. However, this doubt doesn't seem to extend to her friends; when Futaba suspects Morgana of betraying them via teaming up with Haru, Makoto isn't convinced, believing that if he really had betrayed them, he would have blackmailed them by threatening to make their identities public. Additionally, despite being a strong believer in justice, Makoto nevertheless believes that drastic measures are necessary sometimes, which she uses to justify her disappointment about not being able to bring Futaba into crowds of people so soon after they started helping her, although she does show empathy and pity for Futaba considering she's lost her mom and understands how she feels. She also isn't above keeping secrets from her friends; when Akechi reveals to the group that Sae has a Palace, Makoto admits that she knew for some time, and that her motive for joining was to change her sister's heart, but she kept it a secret because she thought it was "too selfish of a reason." Category:Characters Category:Female Characters Category:Persona 5 Characters Category:Japanese Characters Category:Humans Category:Heroes Category:Phantom Thieves of Hearts